Brilliant? Idiotic? aka I'm just saying....

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2015/08/18 13:56 +00:00, original URI: http://www.siao2.com/2015/08/18/8770668856267197051.aspx

The good news involves the fact that my functioning Asperger syndrome brain is so good at coping with issues that I've had dyslexia all my life but never even noticed it due to how well my brain compensates that I didn't notice it until I started suffering from seizures secondary to multiple sclerosis and one post ictal confusion moment lead me to work backwards and realize that I had dyslexia which I could later verify by looking at words by concentrating on shapes contrasted with the letters themselves.

The bad news also relates to those seizures secondary to multiple sclerosis. It was years before rt I even realized that they were happening, and I had to do it largely on my own. The people from Microsoft Security who were called when my iBOT 4000 tipped over after a late night tonic clonic seizure leaving building 28 when I couldn't remember my address had to wait an hour to find a shuttle to take me home, by which point I could remember. Or the colleagues who witnessed me rolling around in post ictal confusion trying to find the way outta building 86. Or the manager who directly asked me if I was okay while I was having a simple partial seizure and my answer was basically nonsensical.

FWIW, the people at Microsoft who recognized a problem and didn't call an ambulance weren't being rocket scientists those days, either.

When I was in the neurological rehab unit of the University of Washington Medical Center, the neuropsych consult doc admitted that all of the suggested coping strategies were things that I had been doing for years without realizing it, and the only additional thing that could be done was putting me on anti seizure meds at the right dosage.

So maybe I have the opportunity to be freaking brilliant if the right *smart* people are paying attention when it is most important.

As they have been saying on social media, IANAL (I am not a lawyer) but I don't know whether or not they could be held accountable for that.

Just to be practical for a moment, I realized that one of my fundamental problems was distinguishing between two different situations:

It is possible to objectively compare and contrast them, but when it is happening it is hard to find anchors to hold onto in the first few moments after I find myself awake and wondering why and how.

At that moment, I feel a little like one of the Grebulons from Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless. You know, unable to discern what's going on but knowing that I had a purpose. Soon after, I know what it is, but those few post ictal moments are unnerving.

The most common clue is losing time, which is easier in the background of writing, blogging, exercising,, reading via Kindle, reading via Audible, watching TV shows, and watching movies. Basically all the activities that I do on my own that are metered and measured....

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